My views about ecology – not that my views matter, but please take that as read – are in flux, and have been for some time. This article is an example of why. I'm far too enervated to be wordy at the moment, or give all the necessary background detail. Why am I enervated? Because we're all doomed, anyway. Let me quote Lovelock:
There is nothing humans can do to reverse the process; the planet is simply too overpopulated to halt its own destruction by greenhouse gases. In order to survive, mankind must start preparing now for life on a radically changed planet.
Hmmm. I don't know. I'm not much of a stoic, or survivalist. I think, if it comes to that, I'd rather just die. In fact, I've thought about this a lot, and was going to do a separate post called 'Cannibal Solution'. When the ecological armageddon comes, say, next Thursday, I hereby volunteer to be butchered for food. Since I'm volunteering, however, I'd like to make a few conditions – I'd like to be butchered humanely, and quickly. Maybe an overdose of heroin would be good, I'll have to research this. Also, I'd like, ever afterwards, to be worshipped as a god. This is my blood you drink, and this is my body you eat, quite literally, and I am resurrected in you. I shall be the saint and patriarch of the new Cannibal Church, and all those who volunteer will be canonised after being cannibalised, just like me. That's how it will work.
Since, according to Lovelock, there's absolutely nothing we can do to avert disaster now (disaster became inevitable, apparently, with the Industrial Revolution) and since I never fucking-well asked to be born on this stupid shitty planet anyway, and since I have not and WILL NOT inflict this planet on any other creature by causing them to be born here, I now wash my hands of Earth. Fucking die for all I care, although I know you'll kill me first. Come on then – kill me and eat me. I will no longer worry about your future as you do not worry about mine.
cap writes:I wanted to write something in support of this entry, but I am also enervated. Especially the final paragraph. I feel much the same way towards Earth, though not necessarily towards the humans held hostage on it. But you’re clearly also addressing the Earth.
Thanks.I might write more in clarification later, if some energy comes my way.
Okay, I’m going to try and clarify some of my thoughts here. This may be rambling and inconclusive, because I don’t have a plan.First of all, I’m not about to become Jeremy Clarkson. I am someone who naturally feels anguish at the sight of a tree needlessly cut down, or even needfully, for that matter.However, I have always felt tremendous sympathy for the fate of the much-maligned egotistical human being, who has no choice but to be born in sin, and who, from time immemorial out of harmony with his environment, has been spurred on an existential quest over the generations for some meaning to fill the void.The fate of all human beings is this:http://www.last.fm/music/Morrissey/_/Michael%27s+BonesEgo? Lack of harmony? Etc. This seems to have come in with self-awareness, which must have been a product of language, or that which brought about language. Its origins are shrouded in Space Odyssey mystery. It is, however, mythologised, in the legend of the Fall. Adam and Eve are expelled from the Garden of Eden. For why? Becuase they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which is forbidden. Now, if you ask me, Adam and Eve were framed. This was a set-up. This was like George Michael in the toilet. Milton, as we know, attempted to “justiy the ways of God to men” with Paradise Lost. God knew exactly what was happen when he made the world, the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve, etc., but Adam and Eve still got the blame for it, because he’d given them free will, apparently. This sounds very dodgy to me, and I don’t know anyone who actually finds it convincing. God has to take responsibility for the set up somewhere – there was nothing in it that was not created by him or did not come directly from him.One does not have to be religious to see the relevance of this mythology. Replace ‘God’ with ‘nature’ or ‘the universe’ and the meaning is very clear. The human race, original sinners by dint of the fact they have attained self-awareness, have fallen from grace with nature, and the wages of such sin will be ecological armageddon. But did we have a choice in becoming self-aware? If we have free will at all, surely it can only come after we have been made self-aware. That self-awareness itself can only have been an accident. In any case, we could never have consciously chosen it. And yet, we are punished for it, and continue to punish ourselves for it. To be punished for it by a lack of harmony with nature in unfortunate. To pile guilt on top of that ourselves is morbidly cruel and unhelpful. Now, the question of free choice remains in that not all cultures have been equally as destructive of the natural environment. I do think that the culture of the West, that is, the tradition that can be traced from Ancient Greece, through the rise of Christianity, to the Renaissance in Europe, the rise of science and industry, imperialism and capitalism, is without doubt the most vile, evil and loathsome culture that ever there was. If one wants to compare and contrast, I recommend reading The People of the Deer by Farley Mowat, which gives some account of the tribe of inland Eskimo people known as the Ihalmiut.However, one question must be asked. Whence came the evil of Western culture and its voracious materialism? Did it not come from the womb of Gaia herself? Did she not bestow upon it power to carry its aggressive appetites around the world and dominate? Does it not, then, represent that of which she most approves? Perhaps it is too soon to answer such a question, but to help answer it, I would ask a further question. Who now knows greater suffering as a result of any environmental anomalies brought about by the evils of the rich Western nations? Are these nations mightily smitten now by the hand of Gaia in just punishment, or are the poorer, meeker nations of the developing world, in fact, those who feel the greater wrath? When something that could be called ‘armageddon’ comes, who stands in greater chance of surviving, the poor, or the rich? I think you can see where these questions lead. I doubt the ultimate moral benevolence of nature, to the extent that I suspect it even to be malevolent. Well, we have yet to see the end, I suppose.But I no longer feel such a duty to flagellate myself simply for existing when I never requested such an existence. I may clarify further, but I shall leave it at that for now…
cap writes:
What you say about self-awareness, language, and the Fall is very compelling. It reminds me a little of something I read explaining some ideas in Blake’s poetry. I have yet to fully grasp it though, so I won’t try to comment.That said, I don’t believe in free will, and that makes it a bit simpler to think about these things. As for nature’s benevolence/malevolence (if you were taking a poll) I’d vote that nature is fundamentally neutral. But this opinion sometimes seems inadequate to me. There’s something fishy going on, what with the existence of consciousness, and pleasure and pain. By nature, did you mean “the laws of physics” or “biological forces” or something else?Also, you really once felt “a duty to flagellate” yourself for existing? I was a bit taken aback by this. Of course I am aware that some people feel this way, but I have not encountered it in someone who has seen through as many illusions as you have. Is it an issue of temperament?It’s funny that you mention Jeremy Clarkson. I’d never heard of him until Stewart Lee mentioned him in those clips you posted some time ago. After that I looked him up. And Russell Brand, and Chris Moyles too. (Thanks, by the way, for introducing Stewart Lee to those of us who’d never heard of him.)
Also, you really once felt “a duty to flagellate” yourself for existing? I was a bit taken aback by this. Of course I am aware that some people feel this way, but I have not encountered it in someone who has seen through as many illusions as you have. Is it an issue of temperament?Well, it’s nice to hear that I don’t always come across as a complete buffoon. You have to understand, though, that I am a complete mess. Well, I suppose I could be worse. I think many people with the same emotional make-up as myself would have ended up alcoholic or drug-dependent by now, and I haven’t, which I often think is an acheivement in itself. I’m still not sure of the ultimate origins of my self-punishing instincts. They are very tenacious, though. I’m not even really over it.It’s a bit early in the morning, but let me see…Clearly no one actually knows what is going to happen. Lovelock’s prediction that nothing now will help our situation is merely that… a prediction. We can take his word as having more weight than those who have not spent as much time looking into the matter as he has, but that’s all. Well, I suppose if we read the books – which I’m not about to do – we can get a better idea of why he’s saying this, although we might already have some of the information, anyway. It’s also quite possible that he has been misrepresented by the kind of article to which I linked. However, my emotional response to such a prediction is basically a mixture of guilt and despair that becomes such a crushing weight to me that I am paralysed in my daily life. Maybe other people have a similar response. To me, and maybe to others like me, Lovelock’s prediction – stated as a certainty – is not at all helpful. And it’s not helpful to the cause of the environment, either. Or it might be helpful in that it makes me think, “I’m a virus? Well, fuck it, in that case, I’m beyond redemption and I don’t care. Let me do what I do, and the Earth’s immune system will do what it does, and whatever happens happens.” In other words, it forces me to reject this kind of doom-mongering and go some way towards liberating myself emotionally.Lovelock is a scientist, but his views, at least as they are relayed to us (I have read a very little Lovelock, and what I read was technical stuff that didn’t venture much in the way of speculation and opinion) are a projection of his self onto the universe. In that sense, to treat them as objective in the way he seems to be doing is immature. I do the same, but at least I’m not a scientist, so peoople can more readily see when I am doing this, I think. That human beings are a virus is an interpretation, and a fairly narrow one, which leads to a kind of dead-end. That said, I don’t believe in free will, and that makes it a bit simpler to think about these things. As for nature’s benevolence/malevolence (if you were taking a poll) I’d vote that nature is fundamentally neutral. But this opinion sometimes seems inadequate to me. There’s something fishy going on, what with the existence of consciousness, and pleasure and pain. By nature, did you mean “the laws of physics” or “biological forces” or something else?I’m very interested in the question of free will, and think that it has to be assumed, at least as a possibility. However, if we’re talking about things like ‘the human race’ and ‘nature’ and dividing responsibility between them… well, where do we draw the line between humans and nature? We don’t live in a vacuum. We are not extrinsic to nature. Whatever will we have must be accounted as the will of nature. This is where some people get confused, because there is obvious conflict between different human interests, and people suppose it can’t all be the will of nature or ‘the will of God’ or some such thing, but what else is it? Where else can it ever come from? It’s just that any will or interest that pertains to an individual human life is incredibly partial and limited. I think the bigger picture is always beyond us. We have to make judgement calls from our own limited view, but knowing that it is limited can perhaps help to make it less limited. If we know that ‘God’ is not any more on our side than anyone else’s then we have a wider view than someone who simply thinks, “God is on my side!”So, to try and answer your other question, by nature, I mean something like the laws and vital forces of the universe, not just the green bits of this planet.I certainly don’t understand what the ultimate nature of nature might be, but whatever we’re capable of experiencing (such as evil, or humour, or sexual deviance, or compassion) must be accounted a part of it. Here’s something interesting from the book I mentioned (The People of the Deer), which I finished last night:At the peak of the hierarchy of spiritual beings stand those elemental forces of nature which have no concrete form. At their head is Kaila, the god of weather and of the sky. Kaila is the creator and thus the paramount godhead of the People. He is aloof, as the mightiest deity should be, and man is no more than dust under his feet. He demands neither abasement nor worship from those he has created. But Kaila is a just god, for he is all things brought about by the powers of nature, and nature, who is completely impartial, cannot be unjust.
It is permissible to appeal to Kaila, yet there is no implicit belief that Kaila will hear or respond to prayers couched in the midge-like voices of men. This quality of impersonality, of detachment, in this god of the Ihalmiut strengthens the majesty of his power. Kaila is no simple creation of men’s imaginations shackled to the whims and fancies of human minds. Kaila, to the People, is an essence. Kaila is not spoken of with fear, nor yet with love. Kaila is. That is enough. What man may do or not do is of no more direct concern to Kaila than the comings and goings of ants under the moss. Kaila is not a moral force, because the Ihalmiut have no need of a spiritual magistrate to administer the moral law. Kaila is essenital power. He is the wind over the plains; he is the sky and the flickering lights of the sky. Kaila is the power in running water and in the motion of falling snow. He is nothing – he is all things.This is part of the cosmology or religion of the people called the Ihalmiut. The book was written in about 1951, and I’m guessing that, since then, the Ihalmiut have been completely wiped from the face of the Earth. Well, maybe I’ll write more about that later. Anyway, I find this an interesting view, although I think even this is partial.Reading The People of the Deer reminds me strongly why I’m interested in what is now called ‘environmentalism’. The Ihalmiut, it seems to me, lived lives that were far more admirable than those of the civilisation I know, and, if all humans lived as they did, then we would not now be facing the crisis we are. It’s not a simple question, though. Some of it seems to be simply what happens to humans when they are empowered by technology. For instance, when the Ihalmiut acquired rifles, since they were continuing to live in the same habits that had formed around bows and arrows, they killed too many deer, and this contributed greatly to the starvation and disease that was to come. However, it’s not as simple as humans + technology = ecological disaster, I think. It seems like greed, gross mismanagement of resources and so on, also play a part – perhaps a decisive part.One thing, though, that is certainly important to me, is to let go of ideas that I can save nature – another form of the same urge to control that has apparently brought about our difficulties. Whatever is happening, which looks like being very bad news for us, it is part of nature. That doesn’t mean to say we have no choice in how we react to and deal with it, but I think that I personally have to let go of any ideas that I know what’s going to happen, or that I can really cope with anything beyond my own very partial place in ‘nature’. If we’re doomed, then there’s no point in caring, anyway. If we’re not, we just have to see what happens. In any case, things die, and we must face death. I die. The Earth dies. Everything dies. Probably in that order.Sorry, this is vague and rambling again. It’s early in the morning, as I said.Thanks, by the way, for introducing Stewart Lee to those of us who’d never heard of him.Thanks for commenting.
cap writes:Well, all this is something I will need to ponder. My own views, though at times roughly similar in outline, seem to … lack nuance in comparison.I have been weakly fascinated (if that makes any sense) by the Inuit in the past. Part of it is the landscape. Another part is, I seem to recall something about the Inuit in the “Shamanism” entry in Mircea Eliade’s Encyclopedia of Religion; whether my memory is accurate or not, in my imagination the Inuit and Shamanism are linked. (I hope I’m not subsuming the Ihalmiut too crudely under the Inuit umbrella.)Oh, I should say, I didn’t find your comment “vague and rambling” — I really appreciate such well-considered elaborations, especially when I am incapable of them myself. Plus, as I am finding out, it is a great deal of work to try to be precise when talking about these things.
Plus, as I am finding out, it is a great deal of work to try to be precise when talking about these things.It is, indeed, and that’s one reason I often have cause to regret the existence of my blog. I tend to slouch into generalisations and all kinds of other sins. In the end, the world is too big for words. That’s why, to me, fiction is a more satisfactory form of ‘thinking’ than philosophy, since fiction is always and only ever the trying out of ideas. I’m a fairly confused person, anyway. I suppose I see any progress in thinking or philosophy on my part as a process of assimilating all the seemingly disparate elements of my own experience and inner life.Another part is, I seem to recall something about the Inuit in the “Shamanism” entry in Mircea Eliade’s Encyclopedia of Religion; whether my memory is accurate or not, in my imagination the Inuit and Shamanism are linked.The Ihalmiut are basically an inland tribe of Inuit, who lived in an area called the Barrens. The Inuit are the coastal tribe or tribes. I don’t know all the details myself. However, you’re right that the tribes all have (had?) shamans. I’m fairly interested in shamanism myself. I’m not sure, linguistically, why one ends in ‘iut’ and the other in ‘uit’, but I’ve a notion that ‘uit’ and ‘iut’ are suffixes that mean ‘people’. Farley Mowat talks a little about the related histories of the tribes in the book, and postulates based on the lore of the Ihalmiut and what is known of history in Western scholarship. I haven’t got it all straight in my head at the moment, but he believes that the Ihalmiut came over to the Americas from north-eastern Asia, and that the Ihalmiut were the most culturally direct link to the first settlers from that migration. I think I’ve got that right. That is, they preserved the oldest form of the culture (the coastal Inuit being an off-branch). However, I must admit to being a little confused about this, as I think the term ‘Inuit’ basically means ‘the People’, and ‘Ihalmiut’ means something like, ‘the Other People’, so I don’t think the history is entirely straightforward. I’ll have to re-read that section.